By:Nick Buglione
Fed up with the Nassau University Medical Center's financial woes and the snail-like progress of the planned renovation of its renowned Burn Center, the Nassau County Firefighters Burn Center Foundation is considering taking its money elsewhere.
The foundation, which raises thousands of dollars for NUMC's Burn Center, fired off a letter Jan. 7 stating that "several developments have occurred that have caused the foundation's board of directors to questions NUMC's ability to maintain the center."
"We have had a promise for at least the past five years that the Burn Center was going to be renovated to make it a palatable place not only to be but to visit," said Nelson Finkelman, director secretary of the Burn Center Foundation and a former East Meadow fire chief. "We have reached the limits of our patience. Given the current economic situation of the hospital, we are going to pursue other options."
Those options include possibly approaching another hospital to establish a burn center and re-directing the Nassau County Firefighters Burn Center Foundation's funds there, Finkelman said. "We have not decided to abandon NUMC," he added. "We have a dialogue with [the hospital], and we have not closed off any negotiations."
While the care at NUMC's Burn Center is still second to none, Finkelman said, the foundation believes the facility is run down and in need of renovations.
"It's not a nice place to be," Finkelman said. "It's not a nice place for a family with a burn victim to wait."
A roughly $3 million facelift for the center, which would have moved it from NUMC's 12th floor to a newly expanded facility on the sixth floor, was in the works, but was halted because of the hospital's sinking finances, said NUMC spokeswoman Shelley Lotenberg.
NUMC has lost millions of dollars since the county turned over ownership to the quasi-public Nassau Health Care Corporation in 1999.
"We are seeking funding to help finish construction," Lotenberg said. "The Burn Center is fully operational, and we have no intention of closing it."
Still, the foundation's board of directors believes the hospital has given them the runaround, Finkelman said. That, along with a recent round of layoffs at the hospital and the closing of its hyperbaric chamber, has prompted the foundation to ponder dissolving its relationship with NUMC.
Lotenberg confirmed that the hospital's hyperbaric chamber, used to treat smoke-inhalation victims, is currently closed, but will reopen. The hospital has been looking for a private firm to run the chamber and should have a deal in place in about a month, Lotenberg said.
Through golf outings, benefit concerts and fund-raisers held by fire departments throughout the county, the Firefighters Burn Center Foundation has raised as much as $100,000 for NUMC's Burn Center in years past, Finkelman said.
"The Burn Center is a vital part of Nassau County," he said. "Firefighters rely on the care that Burn Center can give to them."
Just last summer, 10 firefighters, nine from Oceanside and one from Baldwin, were rushed to the center after they were burned in a warehouse blaze. There they received top-notch care, Finkelman said.
Robert Frazer, chief of the Bellmore Fire Department, said the Burn Center is critical to the safety of all Nassau County residents. He doesn't want to see it close. "It's been worked on for many years to get it where it is," he said.
Assemblywoman Maureen O'Connell (R-East Williston), a registered nurse and a member of the Assembly Health Committee, said the Burn Center must stay. "I will not tolerate the dissolution of that burn unit," O'Connell said.
ITAL: Scott Brinton contributed to this story. UNITAL
